Monday, August 4, 2014

So Much More Mellow Now!

Made this one for fellow admin on Rachel's Haven, Jeannie. She had fairly broad preferences, so it isn't too bard to whip up a caption that she'll appreciate. Its been so hectic lately, that I appreciate any time I get to kick back and relax, so the caption came from that need to just chill out and breathe. I really miss a good cup of tea and I am thinking about spoiling myself soon!

Jeannie talked about tea in her reply:

There's something about tea that makes it a great catalyst for magical
changes. Maybe its the distant origins, maybe the fact that it comes
from plants after drying and curing special leaves and then brewed. Just
the smell of it makes me think things could happen.

Its the little things that matter, and that is why I used the name of the cafe right in the caption, well, I added Haven to it because, duh! The Haven is a wonderful place to relax and kick off your heels. Plus, I haven't truly mentioned exactly what happened, so Jeanne could just be cross-dressing, totally transformed into a fully functioning female, or somewhere in between. Is magic at play, or perhaps a natural remedy for bland maleness within the herbal blend? Something else entirely? Is the tea addictive or taken totally of her free will? I love it when I can make a caption universal!

I am not really sure what to make out of the DIY Challenges. We ended up with quite a few entries, and I am glad that people enter, but then I look at the stats, and the views and comments on them are minimal to say the least. This latest one is probably the lowest viewed post in a few years, with only about 500 views and approaching 40 hours. To compare the last post without a comment, "Auntie Is Trying to Teach You a Lesson" while gathering no comments, reached 1k views in 17 hours.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm not specifically complaining about lack of comments or views as much as I am curious as to why some things skew one way, and other things go a different way. I guess I truly am a stats geek, and I love to over analyze. Is it the "burner" caption I posted at the top that didn't draw people in, or is Saturday night at 10 PM a rotten time to schedule a new post? Unlike some other nights, it didn't seem to be buried in others blog lists, so I can't say it was repopulated out of people's views too quickly for notice. I'm probably leaning towards the first two thoughts right now, but will take other opinions. I am not getting rid of DIY Challenges because I love the interaction too much, but I have to figure out how to maximize their exposure so that everyone will see them.

Most "tea" songs I like are pretty depressing, so I had to go with this one. If you don't like Nirvana, you can have a spot of Sting (and the Police)!

6 comments:

LOL, if this is what happens when you drink tea, maybe you could orchestrate a Boston Tea Party, Haven style.

I can't speak for the rest of the viewers and commenters, but for me there is a combination of reasons:There is the great weather around here, which makes me spend a lot more time outside. I deliberately didn't create internet access outside, so even if I would bring my notebook outside, viewing the web is out of the question.

We have the holiday season at work, so the ones left behind have to deal with a lot of inexperienced temps. That in combination with a lot of changes at my work, new methods I have to master myself, leave me quite exhausted when I get home. Not being the fastest writer, I currently settle for a little lurking.

Usually it doesn't matter for me at what time you post on a Saturday. This time it did. Saturday 10 PM for you is Sunday 4 AM for me. Other days I would just read your post some time on the Sunday. Last Sunday I had a day at the races, you know fast cars, bikes and beautiful girls.

Those all sound like perfectly good reasons to miss it originally Helena!

My main concern over this is I WANT people to see others work and stimulate their own creativity. From what I am seeing, the data says that my individual captions are getting 3X as many views as the DIY Challenges so obviously, people must be saying, "ahhh, nevermind!" and not clicking on posts that contain some good submissions. For reference, this post ALREADY has more views in 12 hours than the Saturday night DIY posting. Right now, we'll just keep plugging away and try to brute force our way to move views for the DIY Challenges.

I glance at the stats on my blog but since I have been posting 4 caps a day since the start of the year it's not as easy for me to measure what works and doesn't. Especially as I mix up the type of caps every day (and i don't index). So I just look at general trends and the only ones tend to be the Sunday slowdown - which begins late Saturday night depending on the time zone and the Tuesday slump. Folks who spend their weekends away from the computer tend to play catchup on Monday and the numbers bounce up and then fall back down on Tuesday. As I've never posted someone else's work on my blog I can only guess as to the reasons. One might simply be the picture choice. It is captivating but perhaps not the type that readers think will make for interesting capping. That and knowing they are not your caps may make them pass over the entries. One simple reason might be that the cap you used as a lead in can be read without opening the page so the readers never see the other caps. just a thought.

Dee-constructing Dee

Admin / Guardian Dee-mon at Rachel's Haven.
Fruit wrangler for Carmen Miranda.
Stealer of Rachel's shoes.
Affectionally known as "The Bat".
Lover of razor sharp wit and the absurd.
Commenter on many other TG blogs.
Connoisseur of Pop Culture.